Turkish army: 8,651 armed forces members took part in coup attempt

Turkish police and supporters of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gather around a military tank on the Bosphorus Bridge after a failed coup attempt, in Istanbul, Turkey, 16 July 2016.

Photograph: EPA/STR

The Turkish Armed Forces says 8,651 members of the military, or about 1.5 per cent of the force, took part in the July 15 failed coup attempt, adding that this shows the "overwhelming majority" of soldiers were strongly opposed to putsch.

The army, in a statement carried by the Dogan news agency, also gives a breakdown of the military equipment used by the putschists.

They had: 35 planes, including 24 war planes, or 7 per cent of such aircraft; 37 helicopters, including eight gunships, equal to 8 per cent of the total; and 246 armoured vehicles, including 74 tanks, or about 2.7 per cent of these vehicles. They also controlled three ships.

The Turkish military, the second largest in NATO, has about 680,000 personnel.

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